CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cultural institutions in Cleveland can take a grateful, deep breath.

None were mentioned in a new
report released today
by the University of Chicago showing that a national boom in cultural construction projects has led to widespread budget overruns and overbuilding that caused layoffs and cutbacks.

The report, called Set in Stone, earned the headline For Arts Institutions, Thinking Big Can Be Suicidal in The New York Times.

The general thrust is that cultural institutions that build new facilities that are too expensive for them to operate can find themselves in financial trouble.

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Steven Litt, The Plain Dealer
Inside the Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago

Both institutions have said theyve planned their new or expanded facilities to be affordable to operate. The Cleveland museum also recently released an
economic impact study
showing that it's producing a positive effect, which could grow after its expansion and renovation is finished in late 2013.

The Chicago report has the flavor of a morning-after reality check following the
wave of cultural construction projects
that splashed over cities around the world after the success of architect Frank Gehry's Bilbao branch of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1997.

Among the cautionary tales detailed in the 71-page report are four case studies, including those of the Art Institute of Chicago and the
Taubman Museum of Art
in Roanoke, Va.

Costs associated with expansions in the scope of the Art Institutes new
Modern Wing
, designed by architect Renzo Piano of Italy, led to job cuts for 22 employees in 2009 and additional layoffs in 2010, according to a detailed case study appended to the report.

The 'Times quoted Art Institute Director Douglas Druick as saying the museum is "on a solid footing for the future."

In Roanoke, the art museum embarked on a humble gallery expansion, only to see the project expand to a $68 million project inspired by the success of architect Frank Gehrys Guggenheim Museum branch in Bilbao, Spain.

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Steven Litt, The Plain Dealer
A long, skylighted lobby connects the entrance of the Art Institute of Chicago's Modern Wing to older sections of the museum.

Once the museum opened, attendance fell far below estimates, while operating costs were greater than expected, the report said. The museum endured multiple rounds of job cuts and had to undergo drastic increases in its admission charges.

David Mickenberg, the museum's president and CEO since 2009, said the case study is "a really interesting and factually accurate case study of the Taubman through its opening in 2008."

Since then, he said, "the museum has been attempting to recover." It has doubled attendance to just under 120,000 and has increased membership by 40 percent, although it is "still confronting economic challenges," Mickenberg said.

The Chicago report states that 800 institutions under study spent $16 billion on construction projects between 1994 and 2008. Of those, 80 percent came in over budget, some by as much as 200 percent.

Performing arts centers were the most common type of project, and the majority of construction occurred in the Sunbelt cities of the South and Southeast.

Despite all the big investments, the report stated, there is no clear pattern of spillover effects (negative or positive) of specific cultural building projects on non-building local cultural organizations and the greater community.